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Images of Los Angeles when it was covered in wetlands
- abhishek0318 9y agoThe history of US fascinates me as a foreigner. How it went from a totally unknown land to a super power within few centuries.
- maxxxxx 9y agoIn places like LA it only took a few decades from the late 1800s on. Almost like China now.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mwilliaams 9y agoIn short, lots of land and resources, and then coming out on top after both world wars.
- handedness 9y agoIf that interests you, The Accidental Superpower provides the best overview of the subject I've found.
- RickJWagner 9y agoCool! I had no idea.
- spraak 9y agoWhat is cool about this? I understand the beauty and also the amazement about not knowing this before, but just to say it's neat is so disconnected from what followed. I.e. "wow, that's so cool the area used to be vast wetlands and now it's all paved over and suffering from droughts etc etc!"
- scrollaway 9y agoThe user you're replying to read a cool article, with some cool photos, learning a cool new fact, and wanted to express that it was "cool" in the comment section of the link. Don't be weird with people, it makes people less likely to hear your message.
- alcover 9y agoPlease avoid empty 'comments' like this. These will be the slow death of HNews quality.
- klorp765 9y agoSo it wasn't a desert after all, and all those people claiming 'all' of LA's problems are due to idiots building a city in the desert are just... false?
- maxxxxx 9y agoFrom what I have heard LA could support around one million people naturally along a very thin strip along the coast. Certainly not the number of people there now. It's also not a desert climate but "arid mediterranean climate".
- vkou 9y ago> From what I have heard LA could support around one million people naturally along a very thin strip along the coast. Certainly not the number of people there now. One million people at what level of resource efficiency? The efficiency of the 1970s, when washing machines used ~200L of water per load, and people watered their lawns with spray sprinkers, which would evaporate half the water before it touched the ground? Or one million people using modern, water-conserving appliances, and, heaven forbid, not having evergreen lawns?
- maxxxxx 9y agoThis statement was made at a workshop I attended a while ago. I don't think it was meant as a precise statement but to illustrate that the LA area is vastly overpopulated in comparison to local resources.
- mturmon 9y agoNo, LA is not a desert. The desert (e.g., the Mojave) is over on the other side of the mountains. Coastal Southern California is not a desert. Here’s a blog by a couple of LA friends about the partly-covered LA creek network: https://lacreekfreak.wordpress.com https://lacreekfreak.wordpress.com
- avenoir 9y agoWetlands and desert are hardly the same thing.
- apo 9y agoWater in the American West is one of those topics that sounds boring on the surface, but gets more interesting the further down you go. A good introduction is the "Cadillac Desert" documentary: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0444F9186975498D https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0444F9186975498D
- TheGrassyKnoll 9y agoVery good, thanks for the link.
- nikolay 9y agoGreat documentary! Too bad its quality is so poor!
- spraak 9y agoWhat will be left of earth in 100 years? We can't seem to understand, or be disciplined with what we understand, that we're destroying what ultimately sustains us. These are beautifully sad pictures. If there were any pictures of the vast Icelandic forests before they were razed, I'd feel the same. Nearly every space of earth is trending towards pavement and buildings. I'm asking myself, what can be done, where is there hope...
- epistasis 9y agoWhat can be done is to build up areas which are already built up, increase density, and bring people out of sprawl. Preserve areas and leave them untouched, and meanwhile make the most of the areas that we do use. This is good for humans (far higher economic activity) and good for the environment. We must fight height restrictions, and other sprawl inducing laws. We must have more protected areas. And we need to provide transit options that scale well in dense areas.
- avenoir 9y agoI'd wager that Agriculture has eliminated more natural habitats than any population sprawl. I'm reminded of this every time I drive out of Colorado and into Kansas.
- epistasis 9y agoYes, agriculture is a massive impact, but as we get better at farming we require less land (at least in the US, I'm not very familiar with other countries.) From the 1920s to the 1970s, forests on the Eastern seaboard had actually been rebounding due to less intense agricultural use: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/us-eastern-forests-resume-decline/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/us-eastern-forest... But then since the 1970s they have begun shrinking again as suburban sprawl took over.
- TheGrassyKnoll 9y agoSorry, but babies are public enemy number one. As long as population grows, pressure on the environment grows. The growth will end, but probably won't end well.
- noahmbarr 9y agoAlmost like we’re a virus that invades something beautiful and balanced, replicates at breakneck speed with no limiter— except when it kills / ruins its host entirely....
- subway 9y agoWas it ever beautiful and balanced if it gave birth to such a virus? We didn't come to be outside of nature.
- odammit 9y agoI lived in Playa del Rey for years just a few blocks from the house on the hill in the 4th pic. A few of the local coffee shops and restaurants have some of these old photos and I always found it amazing that you could still see the resemblance despite all the development. The building being built along the road in the 4th pic is a karate school now. The lagoon is a few ugly condos, a baseball field and mostly mud now.
- fezz 9y agoAs far as I can tell, that building is next to the karate school. My office last year was the two upper left windows. Crazy seeing how different it was!
- jboggan 9y agoLooking at that original wetland map makes me better understand the liquefaction zones south of Santa Monica. I'm very happy that my apartment is on the original surface bedrock, but it's amazing how much has been built on relatively baseless infill. That's going to be huge trouble during the next big earthquake. http://geohub.lacity.org/datasets/4842ad85584c430481246852280257c2_9?geometry=-119.23%2C33.789%2C-117.364%2C34.131 http://geohub.lacity.org/datasets/4842ad85584c43048124685228...
- robocat 9y agoFor anyone from LA visiting Christchurch in New Zealand, go to the some of the empty areas of the eastern suburbs of Christchurch: large areas where homes used to be - all removed due to liquifacation.
- JBlue42 9y agoThat's a nice one. Will have to bookmark. If anyone needs to check their parcel for lots of info, ZIMAS is very useful: http://zimas.lacity.org/ http://zimas.lacity.org/
- kbwt 9y agoWarning: This site breaks your navigation and spews modals at you even with uBlock Origin.
- herf 9y agoA lot of it was "tamed" with major engineering around the river. http://lariver.org/ http://lariver.org/ for pictures
- foobaw 9y agoThat URL...
- njarboe 9y agoOne thing to keep in mind that a natural wetland area in the LA basin in 1800's is going to be full of mosquitoes that carry malaria. People were highly motivated to eliminate all standing water that mosquito larva could breed in. Thus, fill in the marshes/wet meadows to create dry land and/or dredge to make lakes/ponds. Most current First World inhabitants greatly underestimate the scourge of malaria, especially before modern medicine allowed for a cure. The herd immunity like situation of modern California to endemic malaria is due to a wide assortment of factors and is maintained with relatively small cost today, but I imagine malaria could tip back to being widespread pretty quickly.